Anthology
by SenLinYu
Summary: Prompted Dramione ficlets of varying length. Prompt, rating, and any relevant warnings are listed at the top of each ficlet.
1. He Set Fire To The World

**_Prompt: "He set fire to the world around him but never let a flame touch her."_**

_Category: Angst_

_Rating: T_

_Warnings: Implied coercion._

She looked lovely, standing at the balcony, staring out at the city scattered beneath her feet.

Her brown hair caught in the wind and revealed her pale, bare shoulders, as pale as the hands gripping the railing, and the bare feet peeking out from beneath the sheer white shift she wore.He could see the narrow nip of her waist, the gentle flare of her hips, and her thin tapering legs.

The wind blew more constantly, and her hair whipped forward, covering her face.

She didn't move.

She might be cold.

He slipped his cloak off his shoulders and approached her, dropping it over her shoulders and gently brushing back the curls obscuring her eyes.

She still didn't move.

"What's on your mind?"

She was silent for several seconds. "Many things."

His fingers curled into a slow fist when she failed to say anything else. "Such as?"

There was a longer silence, and he watched her knuckles turn white. Her body began to shake minutely.

"I was calculating how many seconds it would take me to hit the ground if I jumped off the balcony. How many people are dead because of me. How many will die if I stay alive. And how many you'll kill if I died now," she finally said in a forced, automatic voice.

A curdling sensation swept through his gut. His lip curled into a snarl as he gripped her shoulder and forced her to turn and face him.

"I'll kill them all if you die."

Her lovely brown eyes were flat as she looked up at his face and nodded slowly. "That was my conclusion."

"Good," he said in clipped voice.

He let go of her and stalked back inside.

Once he was alone, he wrenched open a drawer in his closet and pulled out an old photo of her. Her eyes were bright and dancing, and he watched as she wrapped her arms around Potter and Weasley, threw back her head, and laughed.

He could almost hear it, although she hadn't laughed for years now.

She feigned it—polite chuckles in response to his jokes or the jokes of his friends. Her eyes always stayed flat. The light in them didn't dance; the corners didn't crinkle. She never gripped her chest or gasped as though she couldn't breathe from it.

She was never happy.

Nothing he gave her was ever enough.

He'd set fire to the world around him, but never let a flame touch her.

He hadn't calculated that her unbearable sense of empathy meant she'd feel it all anyway.


	2. All Roads Lead To Rome

**Prompt: "But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it." Neil Gaiman**

_Category: Comedy, Fluff Rating: M Warnings: references to torture, alcohol abuse._

_**~~~~~~~~**_

All roads lead to Rome.

Draco had read the line in a book as a child, hadn't had the faintest idea what it meant, and been too nervous to ask his father.

For as long as he could remember, everyone told him he was smart. His mother. His father. His grandparents. The parents of other children.

He was Draco Malfoy. He was smart. He was going to break hearts.

Those were the pillars upon which he built his identity.

He tried very hard throughout his life to only do things that would ensure people would continue thinking he was smart. He didn't ask questions when he felt like he was probably supposed to know the answer. He didn't try to do things if he wasn't sure if he could succeed at them.

He cheated—which might have been rather unfair of him, but if he was smart enough to get away with it, didn't that just highlight the point?

Yet, somehow, life had really not gone nearly as well as he'd hoped.

For one thing, being Draco Malfoy had become disgraceful. For another, he'd spent his entire formal education at Hogwarts being soundly trounced academically by a Muggle-born. And finally, and most recently, said Muggle-born was was in the process of stomping his heart into pieces.

All roads might have led to Rome once, but in Draco's life and experience they all led to bushy-haired, bossy-voiced, know-it-all, swot extraordinaire Hermione Granger.

No matter which choice he made, or which aspect of his identity he had tried to lean into, Granger's irritatingly large eyes somehow appeared in the horizon of his life and proceeded to bowl him over.

He was never the smart one when she was in the room. Not ever. Not even remotely. Granger just oozed brilliance out of her pores. Any accomplishment Draco had ever managed, Granger had probably done it two or three years prior and without training.

He was Draco Malfoy and, as Malfoys do, he'd gone and become a Death Eater, thinking that the world would be a much more delightful place if over-accomplished Mudbloods stopped mucking it up for him.

Somehow that road had also led to Granger: in his drawing room, screaming while his aunt tortured her. As he'd stood frozen in horror, it dawned on him that a world without over-accomplished Mudbloods wasn't a world in which he was any better, it was just a world with a lower ceiling.

So he'd turned on his heel and walked away from the entire ideology of it. He'd thought a one hundred and eighty degree turn would send him in a direction in which Granger would never cross paths with him again.

And yet…

Draco wasn't sure if his world was just that small, or Granger somehow loomed incredibly large, or possibly she did something to disrupt physics or gravity that constantly put her into whatever path he took.

They'd ended up on the same charity board, which he'd told himself would be fine given that it was a large charity and he was not really an active member aside from writing numerous cheques for them. But then somehow he'd been dragged into hosting a charity gala, which had resulted in his having to plan the said gala with Granger.

Draco had told himself it was fine as he was dragged rapidly down yet another road involving Granger's extremely large, bright eyes, and thoughtfully pursed lips. He'd swerve at the last moment or perform a Wronski Feint or something, and the road would go around Granger.

He reminded himself of it the entire evening while he downed glass after glass of champagne, and danced holding her in his arms, and repeatedly drowned in her aggravatingly enormous eyes.

It was fine, until it wasn't fine any more.

It turned out, in retrospect, that Draco had drunk too many glasses of champagne while telling himself that it really was going to be the last time he interacted with Granger. As they stood in the empty ballroom, Granger kicked off her shoes and pulled out the pins keeping her hair in place while helping the house-elves clean up. Her eyes kept getting larger and closer, and when she looked up at him and made a joke about the melting ice sculpture, Draco forgot about swerving.

He kissed her.

He kissed her and she kissed him back, and they kept kissing and made it all the way up the staircase and down the hall into his room. He'd pulled her dress off and tangled his hands in her bushy hair; drank in the moans that dripped from her clever mouth; and nibbled and nipped and kissed her brilliant skin; and watched her enormous eyes grow dark.

When he came inside her, and then fell asleep kissing her and holding her in his arms, he decided that maybe all roads were supposed to lead to Granger. Maybe that was the point.

Except she was gone when he woke the next morning; and he'd been lying in bed for ten hours now, trying to re-evaluate his entire existence once again.

His road had led to Granger, but now that he'd reached her, she'd gone, gathered her things, and left without a word to anyone, not even the house-elves.

He took a despairing drag from the cigarette dangling between his fingers.

Now that there was no doe-eyed Granger on his horizon, he wasn't sure what direction he was supposed to go in. Since the age of eleven there had always been two directions—towards Granger or away from Granger, and they'd always ended up being the same direction in the end.

Now it felt as though the needle in his compass was left spinning wildly, and he didn't know anymore which direction was towards her or away from her or anything else about the nature of the universe.

Therefore, he had decided not to get out of bed until he died.

He theorised that if he smoked and drank aggressively enough he could probably cut his estimated life-span in half, which meant only forty or fifty years of mourning.

His mother came and tried to force him to come down for lunch and he flatly refused.

He drank firewhiskey all afternoon and when he was on the verge of passing out or maybe dying from alcohol poisoning, Granger materialised in his bedroom.

"Myyyy god," he slurred and sat up to glare at her. "How is it my life always ends up fucked by you?"

She folded her arms and stood glaring at him.

Draco threw his hands in the air. "It doesn't matter what I do, or don't do. It's always you. Every time I walk away, I always end up coming back to you from a different angle. I can't even peaceably die in my own bed."

Draco pressed a hand against his heart and fell back into the pillows. "What have I ever done to you to deserve this—?" He blinked and then said, "Aside from the obvious."

Granger still wasn't saying anything, which was fortunate because Draco had a lot to say.

"You've ruined my life. Obliterated my identity. I'm never the smartest, and now it's not even impressive to be pure-blooded anymore—and I was getting over it, but—but why? Why did you have to break my heart?"

He glared at her again, still gripping his wounded chest.

She sighed and tucked several curls behind her ears. "Draco—I had to catch a portkey this morning. I'm positive I told you."

Draco blinked and stared up at the ceiling. Now that she mentioned it, he did recall her breathily murmuring something about not being able to stay while he was busy kissing along her throat and divesting her of the dress she'd been wearing.

Something about Sweden.

"Oh…" he said slowly. "Right."


	3. His Witch

**Prompt: Draco refers to Hermione as "his witch." **

_Rating: T Category: Fluff Warnings: None._

_**~~~~~~~~~~~~**_

She stood glaring at him with her hands on her hips, drawn up to her fully unintimidating height of barely more than five feet. Her eyes were flashing, and her hair appeared to have begun moving of its own volition. There were small sparks emitting from several particularly angry looking curls.

"Being senior undersecretary to the Minister doesn't give you permission to remove an Unspeakable from their department and assign them as a personal bodyguard for your vacation to Santorini. This is a blatant abuse of power, and you will go and tell the Minister that aurors will be a perfectly acceptable security detail"—her voice grew deadly—"unless you want to find out exactly what it is that I do in the Department of Mysteries."

She smacked a piece of parchment down on his desk and turned on her heel.

Draco watched Hermione strut angrily out of his office and the door slam with a resounding bang.

He leaned back with a resigned sigh and eyed the smoldering piece of paper.

Apparently he wouldn't be proposing to her this weekend either.

He twirled his wand in his fingers and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling, trying to think of a new means of prying his witch out of her beloved laboratory for a few days without tipping her off.


	4. Old And Bickering

**Prompt: Old and bickering dramione. **

_Category: Fluff Rating: T Warnings: None._

_**~~~~~~~~~~~~**_

Hermione stared down at the milk toast the house-elves had placed before her.

"Darling—"

Her husband looked over his newspaper at her, his eyes glittering. "Yes, my light?"

It was difficult to say whose voice dripped with more saccharine sarcasm.

Hermione studied him for several seconds in silence before her lips curved into a razor-edged smile and she speared a piece of soggy bread with her fork.

"I just wanted to say how relieved I am that you aren't being petulant because I said you shouldn't participate in the Quidditch game this weekend."

Draco folded his paper and laid it aside. His silver hair matched his glittering grey eyes. "Of course not, Dearest. After all, I am ' old ' and 'not nearly as fit as I like to think I am.' It brought to mind that I haven't cared for you in your old age as attentively as I should. Given that you are nearly a year older than I, I realised some proactive measures were in order."

Hermione nodded slowly. "Now that I think about it, my jaw has been bothering me."

Concern suddenly flashed in Draco's eyes.

A thin smile graced Hermione's face. "I think it's probably for the best that I avoid any rigorous oral activities for the next several months, don't you?"


	5. Get Rid Of It

**Prompt: "I said get rid of it."**

_Rating: T Warnings: None_

_**~~~~~~~~~~~~**_

"I said get rid of it, or move it," Hermione said in a cold voice.

"But—"

"I said no, and I meant no. Choose a different floor, or I'll change my mind about it completely."

"Why?"

She whirled on him. "Oh I don't know, maybe because I don't want to have a sex dungeon !"

Draco sighed with resignation and rubbed his forehead. "Would the fourth floor be acceptable?"

Hermione nodded and turned primly back to her paperwork. "That's fine. I just don't want it in the dungeons."


	6. One Bed

**Prompt: One bed. **

_Rating: T Category: Rom-com Warnings: None._

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

"No."

"We'll take it," Granger said promptly, ramming her extremely pointy elbow into his ribs.

"We will not," he muttered as he doubled over and struggled against wheezing.

"Ignore him." Granger was smiling brightly at the concierge and handing over a credit card while her stiletto heel drove agonisingly into his foot.

"There are other hotels," he said, trying not to hobble as he chased her down a long hallway. "Hundreds. This city is massive. It's not like this is the only hotel."

"Shut up, Malfoy," she said coldly as she reached the door and slotted the hotel key in. The lock beeped and turned green. As she gripped the knob, Draco's hand closed over hers, his heart was pounding heavily in his chest.

"Granger—" he said in a weak voice, struggling to find the right words. "I cannot share a bed with you."

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'm not trekking around an unfamiliar city at one o'clock in the morning to find another hotel. I'm tired. I have had an exceptionally long day putting up with you. I am sleeping here. If you want to go find another hotel on your own, be my guest. Now. Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

Blood was roaring his ears as she pushed the door open and stepped in, flicking the switch by the door and kicking her shoes off in the same movement.

She gave a breathy sigh of relief that coiled through his gut and sent a flush of heat across his chest as he followed her into the room and let the door shut behind him.

She peeled off her slick raincoat and hung it in the closet and dropped her bag onto the dresser.

Draco's eyes were locked on the bed. It wasn't the smallest bed, but it looked small when his mind was filled with the thought that it would be Granger lying beside him, close enough to easily reach out towards, and she apparently had no objections whatsoever to such an arrangement.

The collar on his shirt was soaked and felt stifling. He reached up, loosened his tie, and undid the top several buttons.

He allowed his gaze to travel away from the bed back to Granger.

Her hands were sliding up her leg and under the hem of her sheath dress. Draco tried not to choke audibly.

Was she unhooking her stocking? Did she wear stockings with a garter belt? He wasn't sure if he had the fortitude to know that particular detail about her.

Draco felt as though he were on the verge of a heart attack as his eyes followed her pale hands as they slid along her inner-thigh.

Merlin…

Morgana…

Circe…

Her hands slipped out from under the hem of her dress. Her wand was gripped in her right hand.

She straightened and, with a quick flick, shrank the chair, desk, and mini-fridge. She levitated them up into her hand and then lined them neatly along the top of the dresser.

She waved her wand again and extended the room by an additional ten feet and then proceeded to conjure a second bed complete with duvet and several pillows.

She pivoted on her heel and leveled him with a scathing glare before she added an enormous privacy curtain.


	7. The Elevator

**Prompt: Harry and Draco trapped in an elevator after Draco and Hermione's relationship has become public.**

_Rating: T Warnings: Some language._

_**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**_

"Potter."

"Malfoy."

Harry pressed a button on the lift and then stepped back, leaning back against the wall and folding his arms loosely as he stared at the pointy-faced prat his best friend had just announced she was dating.

Malfoy's eyes were locked on the lift doors. His expression was cool and indifferent, but as Harry studied him, he noticed that the corners of Malfoy's eyes were tense and the fingers of his left hand twitched as though he were fighting the urge to reach for his wand.

Harry cleared his throat and watched Malfoy's entire body go rigid for a split-second. He started to open his mouth.

Hermione will murder you if you mess with him.

He shut his mouth resignedly and wished the lift would hurry up.

Instead, there was a grinding sound, and the lift abruptly came to a halt.

Malfoy let out a disbelieving breath and stepped forward, jamming his thumb repeatedly against the buttons. The lift buttons illuminated but nothing happened.

Malfoy banged against doors and swore under his breath. He tilted his head back and rolled his jaw so that it popped audibly before turning to look at Harry.

"Well," was all Malfoy said before leaning back against the opposite wall and loosely folding his arms, mirroring Harry's stance.

He's got his wand in an arm holster, Harry realised.

After several deafening minutes of silence Malfoy snorted.

"I'm not going to fight you, Potter. If you're going to pummel me in the lift, you'll have to make the first move. Just get it over with." His teeth were bared, and he had the same nasty sneer on his face that he'd worn at school.

Harry's eyebrows shot up. "I'm not going to attack you. Hermione will murder me if I mess with her personal life."

Malfoy didn't relax one bit. "Right," he said in a tone thick with disbelief. "The lift just happened to break with you and I in here."

Harry shrugged. "Well. I've been here the whole time. So—wasn't me."

Malfoy's eyes rolled briefly, and he turned and stared stonily at the doors.

The silence dragged until Harry couldn't take any more.

"How's working in the Wizengamot?"

Malfoy's jaw twitched. "We really don't need to talk, Potter."

There were several more minutes of silence.

"So—you and Hermione," Harry said, stuffing his hands into his pockets and finding a snitch he'd forgotten about. "I can't say I ever expected that."

"I imagine not." Malfoy didn't look away from the doors.

Harry pulled the snitch out of his pocket and started tossing it and catching it. He eyed Malfoy. "You do actually care about her, right? This isn't some plan your dad hatched up to make your family look better by using her, is it?"

Malfoy's lip twitched and curled upward. "Yes, Potter, I'm using her, and I'm going to tell you all about it in a Ministry lift, and I chose her because there aren't any less obvious Muggleborns to date."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Why not? She was the Muggleborn you always said you hoped would die first. It's hard not to think this is just a different way to hurt her—since it's not fashionable to want her dead anymore."

Malfoy's jaw twitched and the tension around his eyes got more obvious. "Right"—his voice was stiff—"because if I hurt her, it would assuredly make my family look better."

Harry caught the snitch and gripped it. "It could be either one. Either way Hermione is the one who ends up hurt."

Malfoy was silent for a second, and then he turned his head to look at Harry. His grey eyes were shuttered and cold. "So what now? Is this the part where you threaten me with Azkaban or grievous bodily harm? Order me to stay away from Granger or else? Do tell."

Harry stared at him. "Why do you still call her Granger?"

Malfoy twitched and looked away. "Habit."

"Why do you like her?" Harry was trying not to come across as though he were interrogating Malfoy, but he realised he really wasn't doing a very good job of it.

Malfoy wasn't even trying to hide his irritation. "Why do you like her?"

Harry blinked and tried to think of a way to explain Hermione.

"She's—Hermione," he finally said. He stuck his chin out. "She's my best friend."

"That's why I like her too," Malfoy said in mocking voice. "Although I could live without the latter point."

Harry glared at Malfoy. "She doesn't seem like your type."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "My type? What type is that precisely?"

"Someone who can't form an independent thought." He raised his eyebrows. "You've always liked the stupid people who'd follow you around and do whatever you told them. You weren't ever friends with anyone you thought was your equal, only people who let you feel like you were better than them." Harry was no longer trying to hide his dislike. "So—yeah, Hermione doesn't really seem like your type."

Malfoy sneered at him. "Difficult as it may be for you to imagine, Potter, some of us are capable of evolving beyond our eleven year old selves." His hands had curled into fists, and he looked as though he were on the verge of trying to deck Harry. "What do you expect me to say? It's not as though it's convenient. Did you think I planned it? I've barely gotten my life back together, and now I've got another thing that everyone's waiting for me to fuck up."

Malfoy slammed his fist against the doors and stood, radiating rage.

Harry's mouth twisted and he rolled his eyes. "So why are you publicly dating her then?"

Malfoy's hand slid down the door, and hise shoulders slumped. "I don't know how to stay away from her—and I didn't want her to think I was hiding her, that I didn't want to be seen with her. This way—when it goes south, the way everyone expects it to, it'll be my life fucked by it."

Harry raised his eyebrows and tossed the snitch into the air again. "Sounds weirdly noble of you."

Malfoy snorted.

Harry leaned his head back against the wall. "Hermione goes all in on things," he said. "She never bails, no matter how bad things get or what it costs her. She doesn't care whether anyone will appreciate it. She always does what she thinks is right. If she thinks someone needs her, she doesn't know how to say no to them." His chest tightened. "I—took advantage of that a lot in school. I was so focused on what was happening to me that I never bothered to see how much I was asking from her without even noticing. Especially during the war."

Harry gripped the snitch in his fist until the bones in his palm hurt. "I don't want to see that happen to her again."

Malfoy nodded slowly, still staring intently as the doors. "Let me know—if she's hurting because of me."

Harry was tempted to retort that if Malfoy hurt Hermione, Harry wouldn't be letting him know as a favour, but he bit his tongue. Malfoy sounded half-despairing.

The lift suddenly jerked, descended a few more feet, and the doors slid smoothly open.

Malfoy glanced at Harry out of the corner of his eye before straightening and walking rapidly out without a backwards glance.

Harry followed him slowly and watched him enter the Magical Creatures Department.

Hermione was standing by a receptionist desk with an enormous armful of scrolls and an overstuffed satchel hanging heavily from her shoulder. There was an anxious expression on her face as she spoke rapidly to the receptionist.

Malfoy's walk slowed to a saunter. "I hope you aren't bringing all of that with you to lunch," he drawled.

Hermione looked over. Her expression cleared and her eyes lit up. "Draco—I got caught in meetings and thought I might have missed you."

Malfoy slid her bag off her shoulder and up onto his own and started taking all the scrolls. "Lift got jammed on the way down."

Hermione's eyebrows furrowed. "That's odd. They're levitational, they shouldn't be able to get stuck."

"Charmwork may be old. Did you still want to check out the new cafe in Diagon, or were you in the mood for something else?"

They were heading back towards the lifts, and Harry stepped back to avoid several elderly witches returning from lunch.

Hermione and Malfoy passed him without a glance and entered the lift. As the doors slid shut, Harry watched her slip her hand into Malfoy's and lean her head against his shoulder. The tense, defensive expression on Malfoy's face had disappeared. As he stared down at the top of Hermione's head, his face appeared unguarded for the first time in years. Then the doors shut entirely, and the couple disappeared from view.

"Did it work?"

Harry looked over as Ron appeared. "What?"

"Trapping Malfoy in the lift with you. Jennings in maintenance owed me a favour. When I saw you get on, I legged it down the stairs. Figured half an hour was long enough for you to tell him to fuck off and leave Hermione alone."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You think I was going to hex him in a Ministry lift?"

Ron shrugged cheerfully. "Or throttle him. That's what I'd do."

Harry shook his head. "Hermione could castrate me ten different ways if I messed with her boyfriend. If he's not afraid to date her, I doubt there's much I can threaten him with."

Ron was eyeing him with disgust. "You didn't do a thing, did you?"

Harry stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared at the closed doors of the lift. "I really didn't need to. She's got him whipped."


	8. Jealousy

**Prompt: Jealous Draco**

_Rating: M Category: Rom-com Warnings: none_

_**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**_

"What are you—-umph!"

He hummed against her lips as he backed her across the room and against the wall. His hands slid down and gathered her skirts up around her hips, his fingers skimming along her bare skin.

His other hand dug into her hair, pulling apart the carefully pinned curls and destroying the delicate, sparkling netting that had made her chignon shimmer mesmerisingly. He tugged her head back and pulled away from her lips in order to trail his mouth along her temple, pressing light kisses across her cheekbones, brushing off the carefully applied fairy wings which had made her look ethereal.

"What's—?"

He silenced her again with his mouth. His tongue slipped between her lips as he pinned her more firmly against the wall. His fingers pressing between her legs until he felt her shudder as a soft moan escaped her.

He drew his lips back and nuzzled his nose against hers, pressing their foreheads together as he stroked lightly between her legs. Her hips bucked into his touch.

His fingers untangled from her hair. He pulled at her neckline until the fabric tore away and left her pale shoulder bare. He dipped his head and bit down on the curve of her shoulder until she gave a breathy whimper. He removed his teeth and traced his tongue over the reddening mark to soothe it.

"I need you…" he whispered huskily as his fingers captured the edge of her knickers.

She gave a quiet moan but then suddenly stiffened. She stayed frozen for a moment before slapping his hand sharply away. "You—dragged me away from a conversation with the Supreme Mugwump just because you wanted to have sex?"

Draco blinked.

When she put it like that, it sounded unreasonable.

"Well—you see—" he started.

She shoved him violently away and stared down at herself in horror before looking back up at him.

"You are unbelievable." Her voice was shaking with indignation. "You have mocked me for months, saying that I don't have a strategic bone in my body; that if I understood a thing about politics I'd know that the real decisions aren't made in meetings." Her eyes were beginning to glow.

"You said if I wanted the bill passed that this—this—!" She was nearly spitting. "This party was what I needed to attend! You dolled me up to look like some vapid fairy, had me buy a dress that cost more than three months rent for my flat, and forced me to spend five hours in a very busy day having my hair and makeup done! And then you dragged me away and ruined it all in less than twenty minutes—while I was in the middle of a conversation with the Supreme Mugwump—because you wanted to have sex?!"

She was nearly shrieking with outrage.

Draco reached up and loosened his cravat, trying to calm her with the very compelling explanation he had. "There were people looking at you."

She stared at him.

"Inappropriately," he added, in order to help her further understand the context.

She looked as though she were on the verge of strangling him.

He cleared his throat and steepled his hands, pressing the fingertips firmly together. "I think you're right. You should let your hard work speak for itself. These kinds of events are for people who aren't willing to do things by their own effort."

She threw both stilettos heels at his head before stalking across the room onto the veranda and apparating with a deafening boom.


	9. Knock, Knock

_Prompt: Draco not understanding muggle customs (including holiday specific ones)_

_Rating: T Category: Fluff Warnings: None._

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco stared in confusion as Hermione abruptly stood up from their table at the cafe and turned around slowly. Her eyes were narrowed as they scanned the surrounding area.

His hand reached surreptitiously for his wand as he tried to determine what had set her off. There didn't seem to be anything suspicious that he could see.

The old woman counting change? Was the pigeon nearby demonstrating unusual amounts of intelligence? Were there any beetles with unusual markings?

His heartbeat quickened and he started to stand.

Hermione's face broke into a relieved smile and she scurried over to a—flower box?

She leaned over and rapped her knuckles on it twice before straightening and returning to their table and continuing to eat as though nothing had happened.

Draco stared at her for several seconds before he finally spoke. "What were you doing?"

She looked up and blinked slowly as she finished chewing her salad.

"Doing?"

Draco's eyebrows furrowed. "When you jumped up and went and hit the flower box."

"Oh!" Understanding dawned in her eyes. "I was knocking on wood so I wouldn't jinx us."

Draco stared at her in bafflement.

She waved her hand dismissively. "It's a Muggle thing."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Jinxing yourself?"

She shrugged a shoulder as she speared a piece of chicken. "I said we'd still be dating in a year and could visit your mother's palazzo then. In order to keep from tempting fate there's an old Muggle apotropaic tradition of knocking on wood."

Draco quirked an eyebrow and snorted. "You don't even believe in Divination, a formally recognised field of magic, but you stood up in the middle of lunch in order to go tap on a flower box. And now you expect that will keep us from breaking up?"

Hermione slowly raised an eyebrow of her own. "Would you rather I hadn't?" she asked in a pointed tone of voice.

Draco straightened. "No! No. I didn't say that. In fact," he threw his napkin onto the table, "now that I think about it, I should go knock on it too."


	10. First Comes Love, Then Comes Courtship?

**Prompt: When did you know?" "When did I know what, Mudblood?" "That you were in love with me?" Or Hermione's plan to humiliate Malfoy -- and get some justifiable payback for the years of torment -- backfires when her taunts work a little too well and convince said ferret that he just might be in love with her. **

**Rating: T. Category: Crack, humour. Warnings: None.**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

"Oh god!"

There was a frantic shuffling and slamming of closing books and then Hermione dove under the table and pulled Harry's cloak of invisibility over herself.

A moment later, Malfoy came nonchalantly around the corner and then froze. His ferret-y face screwed up with disappointment as he stared at Harry and Ron.

There was a pretentious bouquet of orchids in his hands, with a flock of tiny golden birds flying around it, softly chirping a love ballad.

"Potter. Weasley. Zabini said he saw Granger studying here."

Harry and Ron stared at each other and then back at Malfoy with confusion.

"Bathroom," Ron said.

"Ancient Runes," Harry said at the same time.

They both winced and glared at each other.

Malfoy sneered. "She has Ancient Runes on Tuesday afternoons with Hufflepuff, Potter."

Harry nodded awkwardly wondering how Malfoy knew that. "Oh right. I have no idea where she is. You could try the prefects bath."

Malfoy's cheeks flushed bright pink and a slight choking sound escaped his throat. "If you see her, tell her I'm looking for her."

He turned on his heel and hurried away.

Harry waited until Malfoy's footsteps had faded before he reached under the table and tugged at his cloak. Hermione's bushy head emerged, followed by the rest of her.

"Honestly Harry, Ancient Runes on a Sunday evening?" She crawled out and back into her chair.

"What did you do to Malfoy? Did you love potion him?" Ron was staring incredulously at her as she primly pulled her books back out of her bag.

Hermione shot a scathing glare at Ron. "No. What kind of person do you think I am?"

She sniffed. "I might as well tell you. I had rounds with him two weeks ago. He was being an utter arse as usual. I thought if I used a bit of reverse psychology on him, maybe it would make him shut up. I told him that his constant antagonism towards me probably stemmed from repressed sexual fascination." She buried her face in her hands and snorted loudly. "I forgot about how utterly bizarre and antiquated purebloods are."

"Oi!" Ron said indignantly.

Hermione lifted her head, scowled, and started furiously marking up spelling errors on Harry's essay.

"I thought it worked. He avoided me like the plague for a week and every time he saw me his face would turn red. But then—" her voice jumped, "when we had rounds on Thursday night, he told me that I was right and he'd written and informed his parents of his intention to formally court me so we can get married following graduation."

"Bloody hell." Ron was staring at Hermione in stunned admiration. His shoulders started shaking with laughter.

"I told him no, but apparently it's traditional for a witch to be resistant, as a test of a wizard's sincerity."

She scoffed and began tearing Harry's sentence structures apart. "I thought I'd put him off by seeming over-eager, so when he showed up yesterday, I acted like I was actually taking him seriously, and he snogged me!"

"What?" Ron abruptly stopped laughing.

Hermione continued without acknowledging Ron. "I slapped him. Then he accused me of repressed sexual fascination!"

She added a comma so violently that it tore the parchment. She laid her quill down and curled her hands into fists, drawing a deep breath as though trying to calm herself. "So—I'm employing a strategic retreat—until I figure out what to do."

Harry shook his head. "Only you, Hermione."

Ron leaned forward, his eyes suspicious. "Do you have any repressed sexual fascination with Malfoy?"


	11. Blackmail

**Prompt: Draco blackmails Hermione. **

**Rating: M Category: angst, political enemies Warnings: Blackmail, references to sexual situations.**

**~~~~~~~~~~**

"What do you want?"

Draco quirked an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair. "Want?"

She scowled at him and pulled an envelope out of her bag, throwing it venomously down on his desk. The force caused the flap to open, and several pictures slid out.

They featured Granger's extremely recognizable face involved in a scene that would, even conservatively, be termed an orgy.

She wasn't engaged in anything illegal, but the very existence of the photos was career-ruining in a culture as fastidiously conservative as the British Ministry of Magic.

Draco only glanced at them for a few moments before looking back up at her.

Her cheeks were stained scarlet as she glared at him. "I assumed this envelope was from you—given that you're the only one who continues to see the need to interfere and try to destroy everything I do." Her voice was shaking and slightly choked. Her teeth were bared, and she looked nearly feral. "So—obviously: you. What do you want?"

Draco leaned back and gave her a hard smile. "Now, now, Granger, think of how much weaker an opponent you'd be if I hadn't been here all these years, going to all the trouble of bringing all your legislative loopholes and vulnerabilities to your attention."

His smile grew razor-sharp, and he laced his fingers together, resting his chin on the knuckles. "I must admit I was beginning to question whether I'd ever manage to knock you low enough that you'd finally come crawling into my office. However, even Muggles know the higher the climb, the longer the fall. It just goes to show that none of us are perfect—not even you."

His eyes peeled away from her, and he reached down to pick up one of the photos. He stared at it for several seconds while Granger seethed.

"Since we're here—alone—I have to ask," he finally said without looking away from the photo. "What on earth possessed you to do something this idiotic?" He glanced up at her. "You've had your eyes on the Minister's seat since before you graduated. You had to have known this kind of—indulgence had the potential to destroy all your dreams in a manner both permanent and spectacular."

He tsked and shook his head before flashing one of the photos at her. She immediately averted her eyes.

Granger's cheeks were stained red but the rest of her face was steadily growing whiter and whiter.

Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before she swallowed visibly. "It wasn't my idea," she finally said in a strained voice.

Draco snorted. He was tempted to roll his eyes and assure her that that much abundantly obvious, but instead he waited to hear her try to explain it.

"It was—it was—" She looked as though she were on the verge of fainting in front of him. "He—he said I treated my job like it mattered more than our relationship. That I—always based my decisions on it, rather than him. It was—it was supposed to—" her throat bobbed, "to spice things up. I didn't know it was going to be—like that. He promised it was very discreet."

Draco snorted again and glanced at the date on the back of the photo. "Anything Pucey knows about does not fall anywhere in the realm of discreet. You should have asked me," he leered over the photo at her. "I could recommend several places that take the privacy of their clientele seriously—if this is your kind of thing."

His eyes slid over her, and then flicked back to the photos on his desk.

Her chest was heaving sharply. "What do you want, Malfoy?"

He cocked his head slowly to the side, laying the photo down and tracing his fingertips lightly over it. "Come now, Granger, put that oversized brain of yours to work. What do you think I want?"

A decade earlier and she probably would have cried. Granger used to cry about things. When she was angry, or overwhelmed, or happy, or sad, she cried.

She appeared to have rooted out the habit at some point, although not—he noted, some of her other ones. Her fingernails had been bitten to the quick, and she stared at him with her lower lip caught between her teeth.

"I won't withdraw the bill," she said after a moment. Her voice almost a whisper but nearly vibrating with determination. "I don't care what you threaten to do with those. You can ruin me."

Draco snorted and rolled his eyes. "Good gracious, Granger, you still have all the subtlety of a beater bat. How exactly would forcing you to withdraw your beloved house-elf protections bill benefit me?"

"I don't know." She'd begin shaking with rage. "How have any of your attempts to block my legislation benefited you? At this point I just assume you exist to try getting in my way."

"I didn't say a word in opposition to the WRA," he said, raising an eyebrow pointedly. "It was legislatively flawless. I believe I even sent you a congratulatory note on your excellent work."

She looked angry enough to spit at him.

Draco shrugged and gathered up the photos again, flipping through them slowly. He paused at one and stared at it for several seconds before turning it so she could see. "This is a lovely shot of you. You have better tits than I would have credited you with."

She twitched and her jaw started trembling. "Just—tell me what you want. You have infinitely more money than I do, unless you just want to ruin me financially. Do want me to remove my name as a sponsor of the bill? Are you expecting me to withdraw from politics altogether?" The trembling appeared to have spread from her jaw into the rest of her body, she was swaying like a broken tree branch. "Just tell me what it is; I'm sick of trying to guess what you're doing."

Draco looked down and slid the photos neatly back into the envelope. "As it happens, Granger…" he said her name slowly. "There are several things I'm interested in."

She stared at him for a moment, and then her eyes widened and she looked as though she were on the verge of screaming or bolting.

He chuckled under his breath and tapped the sharp corner of the envelope on his desk. "You do have a filthy mind, even if a sex club wasn't to your... tastes. No, despite how surprisingly lovely your tits are, I'm didn't send this because I wanted a turn as well."

She didn't relax in the slightest.

Draco leaned back and stared coolly across his desk at her. "I want you to add my name as one of the sponsors for your house-elf protections legislation, and I want you to include me on whatever your next campaign is. I want to be consulted, I want to be a co-sponsor. I want a seat at the highly exclusive little table of do-gooders, and you will be the one to get it for me and ensure that I stay there. And—" he gave her a slow smile, "you'll owe me favour, which I will call in someday whenever I happen to feel like it, and you will do it whatever it is I that I ask."

He straightened as he watched her reaction carefully. "In exchange, I will ensure that these photos never again see the light of day."

Granger stood frozen for several seconds. Her expression was masked but there was confusion behind the obvious strain in her eyes.

"I won't do anything illegal," she said in a tight voice.

Draco rolled his eyes. "It will be an entirely legal favour."

"Fine," she finally said in a voice that only had a hint of tremour underlying it. "I want a blood oath."

When it was done, Granger gripped the vial in her hands as she backed away from him towards the door.

Draco stepped back over to his desk and caught up the envelope, flashing her a final grin. "Did you want these as a keepsake?"

She shot him a look of pure loathing as she disappeared through the door.

The smile dropped from his face the instant she was gone. Draco slid the envelope into his robes, withdrew his wand, and cast a quick disillusionment on himself before stepping out of his office. He moved slowly in order to make as little a visual disturbance as possible.

At the first hallway, he turned and walked quietly down it until he stood outside an innocuous, and difficult to notice broom closet.

He pressed his ear to the door and listened to rapid, hyperventilating sobs for a few seconds before stepping back and pulling the envelope out of his pocket. He slid a photo up just enough to verify the date on the back once more.

Just days before her very public breakup with Adrian Pucey.

He tapped the envelope against his fingers for a moment before heading up towards the Ministry floo.

"Zabini."

Blaise cracked an eye open and found Malfoy staring down at him with an icy expression on his face.

He blinked, pushed off the naked witch draped over him, and sat up. He hadn't seen Malfoy in years and hadn't expected to wake and find him in his bedroom.

"Why the fuck are you blackmailing Granger?"

Blaise rubbed his eyes and gave the pretentious wanker a droll smirk. "Easy target. Easy money. Mother's training." He shrugged as he stood up. "How did you find out?"

Malfoy's lip curled. "She assumed this was from me. Did it not occur to you she'd have trouble paying you off if she didn't even know who sent them."

Blaise yawned and pulled on a robe. "I fancied leaving her to stew and panic about how bad it'd be before moving in for the kill. She must be frantic if she went straight to you. It's convenient you came by; you deal with her all the time. How much would you say she's worth?"

He eyed Malfoy while he stretched his shoulders. "I'm thinking installments rather than a lump sum. She'll probably be good for a few years at least." His pulled a velvet chord on the wall to call for a late breakfast and coffee. "I couldn't believe my luck when Pucey brought her through the door. I think she must have sedated herself, she went with it for less than an hour, then panicked and bolted." He nodded towards the envelope in Malfoy's hand. "Stayed long enough though."

Malfoy was staring at him expressionless. "I want to buy all of them."

Blaise froze as he stared at his old schoolmate.

Malfoy was politically weaker than Granger, but financially he was a larger fish by several orders of magnitude.

Blaise hadn't considered seeking out a third party for the photos. Granger was beloved by nearly all, with the very notable exception of Malfoy, who had an inexplicable vested interest in attempting to subvert or fuck her over with any political machinations he could scheme up.

He grinned at Malfoy. "How much is finally ruining her worth to you?"

It turned out, it was worth more than three times Blaise's annual income.

Malfoy held the cheque lazily between his thumb and index finger and stared at Blaise with glittering eyes. "This sum is conditional, Zabini. I want a list of everyone there that night."

Blaise started to open his mouth and deny keeping records, but Malfoy leveled him with a cold glare. "I'm certain you have one. The last thing I need is to have her claiming it was polyjuice. I want to know exactly who the corroborating—participants are."

Blaise shrugged and retrieved it from his logbook. As he held out the list of names and extended his hand for the cheque, Malfoy held it back.

"I also want an Unbreakable Vow. I don't want to worry someone that else is going to fuck up my chess pieces once I have them in place. I want a Vow from you that I have all the photographs and any other evidence and that all the particulars of this little business arrangement will die with you."

Blaise's throat tightened as he noticed the burning intensity in Malfoy's eyes. The man was deranged in his vendetta against Granger. Then he looked at the figure on the cheque.

"Fine."

Draco stopped at Gringotts in the evening after the day's work. He sat silently beside the goblin as the cart raced into the depths of the bank, beyond the Malfoy family vault, to a smaller private vault.

Draco unlocked the door, stepped inside, and closed it with the attending goblin waiting outside.

He pulled the file with all of Blaise's pictures out of his robes, along with the envelope that Granger had brought him.

His jaw tensed as he stared at them. His hands shook slightly and the photos abruptly burst into flames.

He dropped them on the ground.

He walked over to all the boxes of mind-bogglingly detailed analysis of several hundred legislative documents. He dragged a finger along them as he wandered through to the far wall.

A small postcard was pinned to the wall.

"Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war."

He stared at it for several seconds, and then sighed, and turned around. The room was burning, the fire consuming the photos had spread to the boxes.

He watched the fire.

Feuding with Granger legislatively had honed her into a lethal political weapon far more rapidly than any advisor could have hoped to.

Advise Granger about weaknesses as a friend, and she had a habit of dismissing it and assuming the best about others; come at her as an opponent and she'd strategise, strengthen her position, and then coldly outmanoeuvre them.

Draco had thought she was nearly untouchable until that morning. He ground his teeth together. Her personal life would be the one area that she'd remain vulnerable.

Obliviating Pucey had been by far the most satisfying aspect of the day. Draco had thought he wasn't a killer, but he very seriously reconsidered it when he'd had a wand leveled at Pucey's face.

Draco walked slowly around the burning boxes towards the door of the vault.

He paused by the door and stared at a newspaper clipping on the wall.

It had faded after nearly a decade.

1998\. Granger was standing in the witness stand, testifying on Draco's behalf during the post-war trial. If Draco had been found guilty, he'd be up for release in three weeks.

Hermione Granger Wants To Save The World.

He stared at the picture and nearly reached out to touch it.

Becoming her political rival has been accidental. She'd gone straight to the Ministry after school and begun her magical rights campaign with righteous fury and no training. Her team had been equally oblivious to political pitfalls.

Draco had not been, but no one listened to him.

So—he wrote an editorial pointing out all the potential risks of Granger's legislation until she withdrew and reworked it. Draco kept publicly harassing her until it was ironclad.

It became a bizarre type of political chess. He unapologetically hounded her over her political vulnerabilities and she rapidly learned to protect herself, and spot her own legislative weaknesses without him.

Draco was tired of feuding with her.

He hadn't fully appreciated that she'd see their rivalry as personal or malicious until she appeared his office. He considered there to be a vast difference between being politically at odds with someone and actually wanting to ruin their life.

Not for Granger. For her everything she did was morally rooted.

He sighed as he pulled the vault door open and stepped out.

Someday—he should probably admit he'd fallen for her.


	12. Nobody Else Will Be There

_Prompt from the-static-him: A Draco x Hermione prompt: Meet me in the stairwell in a second for a glass of gin. (From the song 'Nobody Else Will Be There' by The National_)

_Rating: T Warnings: Alcohol use, smoking, ptsd_

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

One would think, what with magic having been around for several thousand years, basic illumination wouldn't be so hard to come by in the Wizarding world, but there wasn't even a bit of candlelight in the service hall.

It was pitch black, and I realised, after my shins had collided with a fourth wooden packing crate, that my wand was in my bag in the main hall where the banquet was still going on.

I cursed under my breath while leaning over to rub my leg. I should just go back out. It was absurd to be sneaking around like a teenager in an unlit hallway, trying to find someone who probably wasn't even there.

I straightened and sighed. I was about to turn back when a burnished red light glowed briefly in the darkness before disappearing.

I swallowed and released a low breath. "Malfoy."

The butt of his cigarette glowed again, longer, bright enough to illuminate his eyes.

"Granger."

The way he pronounced my name curled and wafted through the air like the smoke. I could hear the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

It made his drawl more overt. More caressing.

He'd always liked to toy with words with that poisonous tongue of his; experimenting with the inferred meaning of a particular form of emphasis.

Why say what he meant when he could imply it a dozen different ways without the inconvenience of real commitment?

Like the rest of us, he lived his post-war life on a short leash. His was the shortest but most luxurious lead that the Ministry kept constantly under its heel.

His constraints had caused him to make the unspoken a type of art form.

I envied the ability as often as it annoyed me. I wished sometimes that I could keep from saying what I meant.

I have never been coy. I am "sincere."

"I thought you'd quit smoking," I finally said.

The cigarette glowed again.

I made my way gingerly towards the light

"I am exclusively a social smoker these days." He'd pulled the fag from his mouth. His words were crisp again.

I extended my hand, trying not to run into anything or trip over him as I kept moving towards his voice.

A hand slipped under mine, as though he were escorting me onto a dance floor. His fingers drew me forward and downwards onto the rickety service stair he was seated on.

The stairs were narrow and could barely accommodate the width of both our hips. As I settled in beside him, the cigarette glowed again, just long enough to illuminate his profile.

I watched until it faded and then glanced away. "How does this qualify as social smoking?"

A pause. I heard him breathe.

"You're here."

He shifted slightly so that my hip bone stopped digging into him.

"There are about five hundred people on the other side of that wall," he said after a moment.

I snorted and angled myself towards him in the darkness. "The wall being imperative. You aren't attending a party if you spend the entire time sitting in a dusty service passage smoking."

"Ah…" his tone was light. "But only if you're operating with a Grangerless presupposition. I'm not. Your interference is presumed therefore my eventual appearance is inevitable. I'm smoking preemptively."

I folded my hands and sighed. "It will get easier—eventually."

He chuckled. There were several seconds of silence before he spoke again. "You keep saying that."

"It's what everyone keeps telling me."

I reached out, trying to find him in the darkness. My fingertips grazed his robes, and I let them trail down his arm until I found his left hand.

I hesitated a moment before I slipped the cigarette out from between his fingers and brought it up to my lips.

My hands were shaking, and my throat caught nervously as I took a long, slow drag.

I closed my eyes and exhaled heavily.

I reached out and found his hand again, resting on his knee. I slowly laid my palm against the back of it. My fingertips traced lightly over his knuckles as I stared into the darkness.

It felt natural to sit there with him. It had become a habit, maybe even a tradition. I'm not entirely certain where the line of distinction is drawn between the two.

We fell into it over the years.

I was the one who'd brought cigarettes the first time.

At some point over the years, the strange unspoken interlude between us had became the point of every event. The darkened silence and his hand under mine until my hands stopped shaking, and I could go back out to the room with the blindingly bright lights beating down and the constant camera flashes.

Before I left, I always said, "You should make an appearance, just for a few minutes. It'll be noticed if you don't."

He never replied, but he'd show up just long enough to be photographed.

That was all that happened until the next event.

Somehow, without exchanging a word, we always found each other in the dark.

He could rarely leave his manor. Visitors required Ministry approval and all applications and visits were public record, as were his correspondence and his floo calls. They called it government transparency.

I don't know how he'd managed to get hold of cigarettes.

I brought my hand up to my lips and took another long drag.

No matter how many Ministry events I'd attended, they never felt natural. It was like re-agitating a wound and inserting needles. Every year I'm angrier and more on edge until I wonder if I might just shatter under the unrelenting spotlight.

Smoking with Malfoy for a few minutes had become the only thing that got me through.

My hands were trembling less when I brought the cigarette to my lips for another drag. I caught sight of his face. He was watching me carefully.

"That bad?"

I shook my head, averting my eyes. "It—it was fine."

"You know…" his voice was hushed. He leaned closer until I could feel his chest against my shoulder. His breath stirred my hair and I could hear the smirk in his voice. "—they have potions—"

I elbowed him away while rolling my eyes. "I can't consume alcohol if I take Calming Draught or anti-anxiety potions. It's like hanging a sign over my head announcing that I have 'trauma'." My throat tightened and my hand gripped his briefly. "Everyone's watching out there…"

My hand shook again. I forced my voice to relax. "Besides—I promised someone a drink if he showed up."

I quickly brought the cigarette back to my lips.

Malfoy shifted closer. His long fingers slid up to cradle the base of my skull, and he drew our faces together.

I stiffened until I made out the unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

He touched the tip of it against mine and paused.

I inhaled slowly and watched his narrow features illuminate. Our faces were only inches away from each other. His eyes were dark and glittering in the dim glow.

The reddish light caught in his pale hair.

His hand slid away, and he sat back, taking a quick drag.

"You could have used your wand," I said when my heart stopped pounding.

"I've always wanted to try that. You're the only one I know who smokes."

"I don't." I put the remains of my cigarette on the step as I lifted my heel and bore down. "Normally—I don't."

His cigarette glowed as he lit another and slipped it between my fingers without a word.

My right hand found him in the darkness. I ran my fingers over his knuckles lightly, tapping them as though they were an instrument, and the movement drew the darkness and quiet more tightly around us.

After another minute, my hand finally stilled against his.

He shifted, and I could hear the sound of sloshing liquid.

"About that drink. I brought firewhiskey—but when I was moving the boxes off this staircase, I found something new." His voice was conspiratorial. "I believe it's Muggle. It tastes like alcoholic pinecones."

I was never sure if he was being serious or just trying to amuse me when he said things like that.

I snorted. "Gin? It's made from Juniper berries."

He was silent for a moment. "Ah. That explains it."

I gave a low laugh. As I was bringing my cigarette back to my lips, we were suddenly illuminated, and I could see him clearly for the first time.

The first time.

We'd always stayed in the dark. We'd smoke and drink and then I'd leave without a wand ever being lit. I didn't know why he was suddenly changing things.

I stared at him like a startled deer.

His cigarette was dangling from his lips, and his hair was tousled. He was dressed to the nines in that casual, effortless way of someone who wore their clothes rather than being worn by them. It was a distinction that I never felt as though I'd managed.

There was nothing about him to indicate why he was there rather than in the next room with everyone else. I'd assumed nerves or rage like me—but as I stared at him, I didn't see any of it.

His eyes were glittering as he slipped his wand into my limp fingers and reached into his robes, pulling out a set of tumblers.

He lifted up the gin bottle beside him. "Look, it even has a hat."

He deftly poured two fingers into a glass and handed it off.

I stubbed out my cigarette and took the tumbler while he was pouring a glass for himself.

He smirked and toasted me with a lazy salute. "To all you war heroes, cheers to your bravery."

He plucked his cigarette from the corner of his mouth and knocked back the drink, his eyes never leaving mine.

This wasn't what I'd come for. The comfort of darkness was a place to loosen my armour and breathe without fearing anyone was watching to catch sight of my vulnerabilities and old scars.

Now there was light—like sunlight beating down on an exposed nerve, and the illusion had faded away.

I was sitting in a filthy service passage, smoking to ward off a panic attack, sitting beside someone that I hadn't publicly spoken to in a decade.

In a matter of minutes, I would reappear at the celebratory banquet. I had to be seen taking measured sips of wine and consuming dessert in a manner that gave no indication of any type of eating disorder. I had to sit with my hands in my lap and laugh on cue while refraining from picking at my fingernails.

Then I would go home and find out from the morning paper whether I was deemed stable and coping or not.

I brought the tumbler to my lips and took a small sip.

Malfoy studied me carefully. "You prefer firewhiskey?"

I glanced down. "Combining alcohol with tobacco increases the risk of throat cancer."

"Right…"

I took another slow sip of gin. Alcoholic pinecones. The corner of my mouth quirked. The comedic absurdity was as glaring as the light.

I wished I'd asked for firewhiskey. I could use some courage, even false courage.

The solace was a mistake indulge in. I could see that now, as I sat in the wandlight.

I set the tumbler on the steps by my feet and stood, returning his wand. "I should go back out before I'm missed."

He didn't say a word. His eyes had contracted into indolent silver.

I inhaled slowly until my lungs ached as I stared down at him. "You should make an appearance, just for a few minutes. It'll be noticed if you don't."

He nodded slowly. He looked so outwardly collected. There was a part of me that wanted to reach out muss him up a bit, lace my fingers into the hair at the base of his head and light a cigarette against his lips.

"Goodbye, Malfoy."

I looked at him a moment longer, then turned and went back the way I'd come.

The wandlight vanished before I was a dozen feet away.

I found the wall and slid my hand along it, trying to remember the location of all the crates I'd run into earlier.

The roar of the hall got louder when I neared the door I'd left ajar when I slipped out. The chattering. People were happy. People were mourning. At that point, almost everyone was drunk, except the reporters who stayed sober and alert in order to pick up any and all potential gossip.

My fingers grazed the knob, and I stood hesitating, trying to brace myself for what I was about to be re-immersed in.

Each additional year of adulthood made me a little more enraged on behalf of myself and all the other students. We were children. Every year, I'm more staggered by how young we all were.

How was it ever seen as natural for us to be the ones fighting the war? That families had sent their children back to Hogwarts while the Carrows were there. That everyone kept their heads down when the Muggle-Born Registration Act was put in place.

As an adult, it staggers me more, how natural it seemed at the time for the war to fall on our shoulders.

A generation of paper war heroes.

Typecast into our roles at Sorting and now watched daily for signs of wear and tear.

The majority of the Wizarding world wasn't willing to lift a finger to fight the war, but they're all too eager to diagnose us with trauma from the comfort of their armchairs.

My hands were threatening to shake again, and I clenched them into fists for a moment before I reached to open the door.

It was stuck. Lodged. I glanced up and saw the dim outline of a hand, pressed against it.

Malfoy had materialised behind me. I'd barely turned before his chest pressed against mine. His hand slid down the door to my shoulder, and his fingers cradled the base of my head. There were no cigarettes between us as his face drew closer.

"Hermione—"

I didn't know what it meant when he said my name like that. What inference or implication was intended.

My eyes widened as my breath caught in my throat. "What—?"

His lips brushed against mine.

Then he waited.

It was an unspoken question.

My heart was pounding in my chest and my fingers were trembling as I reached out and drew him closer.


	13. Spiders

_Prompt: Hermione standing on a table waiting for Draco to kill a spider for her. (I couldn't imagine Hermione being afraid of spiders, so I reversed the prompt)._

_Trigger warnings: spiders_

~~~~~~~~~~

He doesn't appear when she walks through the door. He isn't in the library or his study either.

"Draco?"

"Up—here." His voice wafts down the stairs with an indefinable quality Hermione cannot quite put her finger on.

She ascends the stairs slowly, wand drawn, until she comes to his room. The door is slightly ajar.

She hesitates for a moment. The odds currently stand evenly split. She'll either push it open to find him waiting for her, decoratively garbed in chocolate, or discover him held at wand-point by vengeful Death Eaters.

It's almost impossible to ever predict anything when it comes to Draco Malfoy.

She draws a deep breath and flicks her wand, swinging the door open.

He is not naked.

Or held hostage.

Instead she finds him standing casually upon a precariously small side table in the middle of the room.

"Ah, you're here," he says as though his current location is normal.

She stares at him for several moments in silence. "What are you doing?"

He quirks an aristocratic eyebrow and looks down his nose at her. "I do live here, last I checked. I believe the deed for this house lists me as it's possessor. I can stand wherever I want."

Hermione sighs and glances around the room. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?"

Hermione raises an eyebrow of her own. "The spider. Where is it?"

"What spider? There's no spider. Is a man unable to stand on his own side table—"

Hermione rolls her eyes and casts a point-me charm, while Draco waxes eloquent on individual rights and freedom, parroting all of Hermione's favourite talking points from the many occasions when she's lectured him.

There is a cardinal spider lurking beneath the bookshelf.

"Draco, it's nothing," she says as she kneels down and reaches under, gently catching it. "They're entirely harmless."

"It's enormous." Draco sounds as though he's being strangled to death.

Hermione stands up, and the spider scurries rapidly around her hand as she turns to face Draco again.

"Oh fuck! Please don't do that again. Kill it. For god's sake, it's a spider, you're supposed to kill them. Why do you always have to let them climb on you?" He buries his face in his hands, and the side table wobbles dangerously.

"I don't always let them climb on me. This kind is harmless." She flicks her wand, and the spider levitates through the air as she sends it out the open window and into a nearby tree.

"All gone and nobody died." She closes the window and looks up at him again. "Still exercising your right to stand on the side table, or will you come down now?"


	14. A Zero Point Eight Percent Chance

_Prompt: Accidental pregnancy_

_Rating: T _

_Warnings: none_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"My mother is speaking to me again."

Nothing.

He cleared his throat. "She sent a note yesterday asking how I was."

Hermione was still staring absent-mindedly out of the window.

"I wrote back—and she asked if I'd come to dinner this Tuesday."

Still nothing.

"I intend to decline unless she extends the invitation to you as well."

The hollow at the base of her throat dipped, and she looked at him suddenly. "You should go."

He stared at her. "Really?

She nodded. "Yes. You should go. They're your parents."

His eyebrows furrowed. "Right. They've also refused to speak to me since I informed them that we're dating. Which seems like a pertinent issue."

She studied at him. The tines of her fork tapped lightly at the edge of her plate. "Where—where do you see us in a year or so?"

Draco shifted uncomfortably at the change of subject. Hermione had very specific ideas about the pace of relationships; they should progress with grave intentionality. He'd only just managed to convince her to let him have a drawer in her flat.

"I don't know. If it keeps going well, maybe l'll have two drawers by then."

She didn't appear to notice the joke. She gave a short nod and looked down at the peas on her plate as her fork chased them from one side to the other.

"Is everything alright at work?" He eyed her carefully, trying to pin down exactly what seemed off about her. She nodded without meeting his eyes.

She was bothered about something, but as far as he could tell, it didn't seem directed specifically towards him.

Was he forgetting an important date? Not her birthday. They'd been "officially" in a relationship for one month and three weeks and two days. Prior to that, they'd dated for five months and some odd days, which he didn't think was traditionally celebrated. No major events in November for either of them insofar as he was aware.

She didn't generally make him guess if he'd done something to upset her. He'd been an excellent boyfriend lately—if he did say so himself. He hadn't even done anything to get back at Weasley for turning him into a giant canary at the excruciatingly uncomfortable 'Weasley Dinner' that he'd attended with Hermione last Friday evening.

She was still chasing her peas around her plate.

"What's wrong?"

Her fork stilled, but she didn't look at him immediately. The tip of her tongue darted out, and she wetted her lips before looking up.

"I—" she started, then she froze, her mouth still ajar. She swallowed and set her fork down before squaring her shoulders.

She was going to break up with him, he realised with shriveling horror.

No wonder she thought he should go have dinner with his parents.

She didn't want him anymore. He had too much to make up for, and their relationship was interfering with and creating too many difficulties throughout her life.

He felt his throat close as the blood drained from his head.

"I'm—pregnant."

"What?" The question escaped him before he'd even processed that he was forming words. He felt as though he'd been bracing himself to be stabbed in the heart then instead been clocked in the head. His entire mind came to a screeching halt. "What?"

"I'm pregnant." Her brown eyes met his bewildered gaze for a moment before she looked back down at her plate. "I found out earlier today."

Draco abruptly had approximately five hundred thousand questions.

Pregnant? How was she pregnant? She was definitely, borderline religiously, taking contraceptive potions.

Draco had never thought about fatherhood beyond the abstract conclusion that he was not planning to be interested in it for a good long time.

Hermione was pregnant.

He stared at her dazedly. "H-h-How?"

Hermione pressed her lips together. "Contraceptive potion has an efficacy of about ninety-nine point two percent. Which means there's still a point eight percent chance of getting pregnant. So if there are a hundred witches using it for a year, there can still be the possibility of a pregnancy occurring."

"And that's you…" he said slowly.

Her nostrils flared as she inhaled. "That's me." The base of her throat dipped and she looked down at her lap and was silent for several seconds. "I don't know what I'm going to do yet. They gave me a prescription for a potion."

Draco swallowed and resisted the urge to reach out and drain his wine glass. Despite his daze, he had a very clear sense that he'd never be able to take back whatever he said next.

As petrified as he was at the very concept of fatherhood, he was even more terrified that he was going to misstep and break the very fragile trust he had managed to build between them.

He opened his mouth and then closed it again. He wanted to loosen his collar, but her eyes were wide and locked on him. She sat carefully watching him.

She reminded him of a frightened wild rabbit. When he was growing up, there had been hundreds of them on the estate. They'd freeze and watch him with their dark eyes, barely moving, ready to sprint away and vanish in an instant if threatened.

He inhaled and leaned forward, extending his hand. Her hands were in her lap, so he rested his fingers on the table near her.

Her dark, intelligent eyes grew wider as they darted between his hand and his face.

He exhaled slowly.

He'd already been done for long before he'd managed to get her to agree to even have a drink with him. Just a drink had required weeks of deliberation on her part.

She'd had a very long list of rules and requirements specifically engineered to keep their relationship's progress slow, and it had worked aggravatingly well during the initial few months.

Things had accelerated somewhat when they'd agreed to tell people that they were in a relationship. Draco's parents had been incensed, and his father had threatened to disown him. The Weasleys and Potter has been about as pleased as one would expect and were unveiled in their displeasure and skepticism.

The first month had not been pleasant. However, the upside of Hermione refusing to speak to Potter and Weasley for being "complete idiots" and Draco openly toeing the line of becoming a blood traitor and following in the footsteps of his aunt Andromeda, was that their social life was largely non-existent.

Which—now as he thought about it, probably had something to do with the situation at hand.

"What are you thinking of doing?" he asked.

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, and he could see the tips of her teeth gnawing at it.

She always had a plan for things. Post-war, the life of Hermione Granger was meticulously plotted out.

Her colour-coded calendar had evenings marked for company, for projects, for reading. They were currently having lunch on the one lunch break each week that she was available to have lunch with him. She volunteered during three out of her five of them, and another day was marked and reserved for maintaining collegial relationships with friends and coworkers.

She had a one year plan, a five year plan, a ten year plan. Possibly others.

She always knew exactly what to do.

"I don't know. I feel like I should just know what I should do—but I don't—" She drew a sharp breath. "We—" her voice wavered and faded.

The corners of her mouth twitched, and her eyes moved away from his face. She was quiet for a moment. He watched her shoulders tense, and her whole body appeared to contract.

She was going to keep the pregnancy. He was almost positive. She wouldn't have been so uncertain if she was instinctively leaning towards termination. She probably would have already picked up the potion.

She was going to keep it, and she knew that the choice would annihilate half her plans and most of her calendar, and obliterate her intention of having their relationship indefinitely progress at the temperate speed of a sloth.

Her fingertips appeared at the edge of the table and slowly turned white as she gripped it.

"I don't know what I'm going to do yet—but—"she swallowed visibly, and her voice become tight and businesslike,"—obviously this wasn't in either of our plans. Our relationship is very new, and we don't have any idea of what could have happened in the long run if things hadn't been derailed like this. I wanted you to know about the pregnancy, but I don't expect or want you to think that this makes you obligated or committed in any way."

Draco's hand twitched. "What?"

Her eyes flashed with stubborn determination. "I'm perfectly capable of having a child on my own—if I decide to. I don't want you—staying involved with me because you have some antiquated sense of obligation and believe that you have to make honest witch of me now. I just—" her voice wobbled as she inhaled, "I would rather know right off if you don't want to be involved—it would—be easier for me if we could conclude things amicably in that case."

Draco stood up abruptly, walked around the table, and then stole a chair from a nearby table. He sat and took her by the shoulders, turning her so that he could look into her eyes.

"Hermione—" he said, his hands running down her tense arms.

"Hermione…" he said again, his hands reaching up and shaking somewhat as he captured her face. His fingertips traced her cheekbones and along her jaw.

"Hermione, I am in love with you," he finally said. "I was in love with you before anyone knew we were dating. I was in love with you before we slept together. I was already pretty nearly in love with you before you agreed to get a drink with me. If you keep this pregnancy, I will still be in love with you. Whatever you do—for the rest of your life—I'm in for. Wherever you are—and whatever you're doing, that's the only place I want to be. Alright?"


	15. Tabula Rasa

_Prompt: Tabula Rasa_

_Rating: T_

_Trigger warning: no-HEA_

~~~~**~**~~~~~~~~~~

Tabula rasa. Those are the terms.

Get out of Azkaban, work at her insipid house-elf charity for a year, and pretend they've never met before.

It's weird, but anything is better than sitting in Azkaban for a second year.

It's like a fresh start.

The concept is tantalising.

He refrains from rolling his eyes as he agrees to it. "I'd love to act like I've never seen her before."

"The terms will be magically binding. Violate them, and you will return to fill the additional year of your sentence," the weevil-faced lawyer says.

Draco glances at his mother who sits eagerly beside him and is nodding her encouragement.

"Fine. I'm legally bound act like I don't know her. Sounds ideal. Where do I sign?"

He doesn't know why the clause even existed in the agreement. Three weeks on the job and he hasn't even laid eyes on her.

The day he arrives, he's shuffled off into a cramped office in the basement, and, after they try giving him a variety of different tasks, he ends up being assigned to write thank you letters.

It's his entire job.

Excellent penmanship is apparently the only usable skill that he possesses.

He assumes at first that it will be easy. He'll come in late, leave early, and spend a matter of minutes charming a couple dozen notes tops.

"Dear Bootlicker, Thank you terribly much for your generous donation of 500 galleons. I'm thrilled there was literally nothing else you could conceive of to do with your money. It will assuredly be used by yours truly to improve the lives of the sentient abominations called house-elves. Sincerely, love and kisses, the Wizarding world's favourite buck-toothed harridan, Hermione Granger."

No. It's not easy. Granger has elaborate requirements for all the thank you letters that she doesn't even bother to personally write.

He has to go through the society papers and Granger's detailed personal calendar to make references to the donor's last meeting with her. He's expected to ask about children and grandchildren by name and discuss the inner-workings of the charity as well as to relate anecdotes about all the sad little elves the donor's money saves.

Within a few weeks, he's maintaining a full-fledged correspondence between the most bizarre assortment of Wizarding folk, a centaur, two vampires, and an alleged forest troll. A correspondence that he is maintaining as Granger, whom he hasn't laid eyes on in years.

Supposedly she looks over all his letters before signing them and sending them off, but Draco doubts it. After weeks there, he still hasn't so much as caught sight of her bushy head.

He torn between a sense of outrage and admiration over what a slick ship she runs. Poor dear little Hermione, the Wizarding world's darling, has an entire legion of Yes-men at her beck and call, doing all the work she's allegedly achieving with her chipper can-do attitude.

He doesn't think she even shows up in her office most days. If she does, she never slips so much as a toe past the fourth floor where her office sits.

Granger has a matronly personal assistant the size of a mountain named Charlotte. The woman is like the female version of Crabbe and Goyle simultaneously. Draco is convinced she must be at least a quarter troll. She glares at Draco whenever "passing on messages" and makes clear to Draco that she'd gladly snap his spine if Granger ever gave her the go-ahead.

Draco accepts his "job" with his head down. He just has to endure it a year and then he's free. Maybe once he's not at risk of returning to Azkaban, he can expose what a fraud Granger and her charity are.

He finally sees Granger after two months.

She's walking by with her assistant when he's standing in the hallway, taking a break from his cramped office's inadequate air flow.

Granger catches sight of him all the way down the hallway and without hesitating, bolts down the hallway to him.

"Hi, I'm so sorry. You've been here for over a month, and I haven't said hi." She's beaming at him as she takes hold of his hand and shakes enthusiastically. Her assistant comes thundering down the hall after her. "I've been admiring your penmanship for weeks. I'm Hermione Granger, and you must be Draco Malfoy. I'm so pleased we could have you on the team here."

Draco stared at her blankly while she pumps his hand up and down.

Tabula rasa.

Everyone at the charity knows who he is, even though they make a show of not. There are loud comments about the kinds of people who would become Death Eaters. The receptionist pretends to be unable to recall his name or that he has a job there. Draco is obliged to go through the full sign-in process every morning as though he's a visitor.

However, Granger has no idea who he is. It's not an act. There is not even a flicker of recognition in her eyes as she grins up at him.

He's imagined their fake "meeting" a dozen different ways, but this iteration isn't one that's ever occurred to him.

"Granger," he says as she continues wringing his hand. Charlotte is ten feet away, her footsteps shaking the hall, and her eyes are threatening a slow and painful death. "It's been a—pleasure?"

"Miss Granger, you have a meeting with Gibbling to review charity finances in five minutes," Charlotte says as she reaches Granger, trying to tear her away from Draco.

"I do?" Granger's hand slips out of Draco's, and she looks chastened, as though she's been slapped. "I didn't remember—"

"I apologise, ma'am," the assistant says smoothly, inserting herself between Granger and Draco. "It slipped my mind, I only just remembered he sent a note this morning. I'm sure it will only take a few minutes."

Granger is craning her neck to look back at Draco as she's being herded away. She side-steps her assistant and cuts back.

"It was nice meeting you, Draco. I'm having a little party at my flat this Saturday with some of my friends. Would you want to come by? It's the least I can do after being so rude."

"I…" Draco glances back and forth between Granger's hopeful face and the venomous expression of Charlotte behind her, who is shaking her head warningly. "—don't think I can make it?"

"Oh. Well, I'm sure we'll see each other again."

Draco watches Granger trot off with her assistant in tow feeling incredibly confused about what's going on.

He feels like if anyone were going to tell him, they would have already done so. He's legally bound to play along with whatever this ridiculous farce is.

His mother has to know, but her lips are apparently sealed on the matter.

"You're out of Azkaban, darling. Focus on that and leave everything else alone."

He wants to, but he can't help but try to figure it out. Why doesn't Granger remember him? It feels like he's been personally and exclusively excised from her life, and he hasn't the foggiest idea why he was the only one singled out.

Granger still knows his mother. She's still an active participant post-war rebuilding and gives speeches from time to time about things like the Battle of Hogwarts.

She isn't the type to fuck with her memory based on anything and everything Draco knows about her. If she were, he doesn't know why she'd choose to forget him. And if she did choose to forget him, he doesn't know why her weird melange of employees and friends would let her hire him.

It feels personal, and he can't bring himself to leave it alone. Is there anything else she doesn't remember?

When he isn't ghost-writing her correspondence, he starts going through the newspapers and her old calendars trying to pinpoint exactly when Granger may have forgotten his existence.

He thinks it happened about six months after he was imprisoned in Azkaban following the war. Granger's exhaustively detailed calendars start immediately after that, and her public appearances were sporadic and odd up until then.

He starts hanging around in hallways when he thinks he might run into her. Her assistant is always a few steps behind her, glaring at Draco as though she knows why he's there and inventing meetings and events in order to get Granger away from him.

He's been there four months and has barely spoken to her for more than ten minutes in the entire time.

He's in the middle of writing a sarcastically cordial letter to Romanian vampire when his office door cracks open and Granger sneaks into his office.

He looks at her as she drops into the chair across from his desk and lets out a heavy sigh of relief.

Draco eyes the door, waiting for Charlotte to burst in like a raging erumpant.

Granger notices where his gaze is directed. "Don't worry. I sent Lotte on an errand. We have at least fifteen minutes before she comes looking for me."

Draco looks back to Granger. He doesn't know what to make of her.

This version of Granger is weirdly cheerful, like all her prickly defensiveness has been smoothed away. She still looks frightful, as though she suffers a phobia of hair potion, she's still bizarre and obsessed with things like saving house-elves and everything else in the world. But he feels like she's an entirely different person around him.

Maybe he'd just never known her without her claws out.

Granger shifts and looks slightly uncomfortable. "She's very protective of me. I—I lose track of things sometimes."

Draco just nods, not really sure how anyone who keeps records of their daily activities as exhaustively as Granger does could possibly be accused of losing track of things.

She glances around his office. "Why on earth did they put you in here? This room looks like a storage closet."

Draco refrains from telling her that it literally is a storage closet and the absolute furthest room from her office. He measured one day, just to confirm it to himself.

"I'm not picky," he lies. "It's more comfortable than Azkaban."

Her mouth purses. "That's hardly a commendation. I'll have you moved upstairs. I'm sure we still have a few extra offices. Somewhere with a window and plants! My friend, Neville, is a genius with plants. Once we've moved you, I can get a few."

She pokes around in his office for a few more minutes, interrogating him about how he likes his job and how his "co-workers" are treating him. Draco lies his way through her questioning until she stands up looking at him thoughtfully.

The next day, Charlotte appears looking enraged while he's at the front desk filling out the visitor sheet for the hundredth time.

"Miss Granger wants your office moved to the fourth floor," she says, looking as though someone has force-fed her a lemon.

Draco's new office is two doors down from Granger's. He has an entire wall of windows.

Granger pops in relentlessly, bringing him plants and knitted tea-cosy, and "Lotte" looks more and more as though she wants to throttle him.

Granger takes to sneaking into his office whenever Lotte is out running errands. Which seems to occur suspiciously often.

Draco is certain that Granger's aware that there is something odd going on. Her eyes are sly and calculating. She knows she's being "handled", and that it involves endless attempts by all her employees to keep her as far away from Draco as possible, which makes her obstinately seek him out all the more.

At first Draco tries to ignore her, but she is his boss. He feels obligated to talk to her whenever she shows up.

Eventually they talk about all the letters he's writing on her behalf. She looks down at her lap and spends several seconds straightening her skirt.

"You must think it's odd that I don't keep up with the donors personally," she says, looking up at him.

"Not at all," he lies. "I'm sure it's common for charities of this size. I'm happy my handwriting can be of some use."

"I used to—" she says, her voice somewhat halting. "But—" her head jerks slightly, "my—my memory can be rather—that's why I keep so many notes in my calendars, to keep track."

Her expression is visibly strained, her beaming effusiveness gone.

"You're a very busy person," he says, eyeing her carefully.

She gives a stiff little nod and her eyebrows furrow. "I think—I used to remember things better. Now, if I don't have someone to remind me about things… sometimes"—her head jerks—"I forget details."

"It's probably just stress."

"Maybe," she sounds unconvinced.

She has all the traditional symptoms of someone who's been extensively and powerfully obliviated. Absent-mindedness. She's chronically forgetful, Draco realises over time.

Charlotte does invent appointments to get Granger away from Draco, but almost as many reminders are for real events that Hermione forgets she's headed to. On several occasions, Draco finds her standing alone in the hallway, trying to remember which door is her office.

She's still smart. Still blisteringly smart, but it's like watching a bird with its pinions clipped. It's clear she's intended to be airborne, but someone has hobbled her.

It's painful to witness, and it's made worse by the fact that she's clearly aware of it.

The memory loss somehow seems to centre around Draco, which he cannot understand. If someone malicious were to go and wipe something from her memory, her best friend's school rival is not the person Draco would pick.

Obliviation is self-protective. The mind will not consider the idea of tampering or let her realise her memories are incomplete. Whenever a conversation strays anywhere near their shared past, her attention abruptly, almost violently pivots to a different topic.

However, despite how obstinately her memory keeps her from suspecting any past acquaintance with Draco, she can't seem to stay away from him. As though she can instinctively tell he's a missing piece.

One day she tells him about a potion idea she has, and it's almost brilliant except she's clearly forgotten a brewing idiosyncrasy of a key ingredient. She realises she's missed something and just comes to a rambling halt in the middle of her explanation, a drawn, embarrassed expression sweeping across her face.

"Never mind. I think—I should...maybe it will work out if I write it down—" she looks down and her cheeks are stained scarlet.

"Sting slime needs to simmer for six hours uncovered," he says. "Unless you want the potion to result in weightlessness."

She stares at him for a moment and then her face breaks into a smile. "Yes! Six hours of simmering. That's when you leave it under the full moon and gather fresh asphodel." She sighs with relief and presses a hand against her head. "That's what I was missing. I thought—thank you, Draco. I thought—I thought maybe I'd gotten it all wrong again."

Her exuberance causes Draco's entire body to grow warm and a weird bubbling sensation in his stomach.

He avoids her eyes. "I haven't brewed much since leaving prison, but everything else sounded correct. If you want to send it on to a potions journal, I can look it over if you ever write it all out."

Her eyes are shining, and she beams at him. "That would be so helpful. My friends didn't really care much for potions class. I'm so glad I found you."

She skips slightly as she leaves his office which causes his entire face to twitch repeatedly as he witnesses it.

Granger spends increasing amounts of time in his office, and Draco doesn't—well, he doesn't exactly mind.

She's infinitely better company than dementors, he tells himself.

She incredibly interested in him, in a way that he has no idea how to handle. She wants to know what he'll do once his contract with the charity is over, and he finds himself trying to come up with ideas to share with her that don't don't merely involve him indolently frittering away his time on his family's properties.

It isn't as though he's not allowed to be friends with her. The terms of his contract simply require him to give no indication of any prior acquaintance with her.

They can be friends, he tells himself when she invites herself into his office to have lunch with him.

Good friends even, he reasons, when she invites him to her flat for dinner one evening.

There's nothing in the contract that restricts them from being more than friends. He's certain of it. He's checked. Checked and rechecked.

Hermione is perched on the arm of his desk chair.

Their faces are getting slowly closer and closer until he can feel her nervous breathing. She has the most beautiful eyes. Her hair falls forward as his nose brushes against her.

His hand ventures up until his fingertips trace along her cheek.

She smiles. Her eyes smile and the corner of her mouth curves faintly up as she dips her head lower.

Their lips are almost touching when the door bursts open and Charlotte storms across the room.

"Miss Granger is supposed to be at a board meeting," she says as she rushes Hermione away.

Draco has barely gotten his heart rate back down to a steady pace when Charlotte returns in a state of seething rage. She grips him by the robes and physically drags him from the building.

"You're contagiously ill. Bed-ridden. I don't want to see you set foot in this building for a month," she says, glowering at him. "Stay away from her, you Death Eater bastard."

Draco goes home sulkily. His mother is in France visiting a cousin and he has nothing to do but lie about indolently drinking.

The attempted separation goes as well as Draco expects. Charlotte may be obsessively loyal to Hermione, but she clearly didn't think through what sending Draco home sick would result in.

Hermione shows up at Malfoy Manor through the floo after three days. Draco has to bolt through the manor and dives into bed mere seconds before she comes trotting into his bedroom, carrying a basket packed with soup and potions.

She fusses over him for several minutes while he lies and pretends to be languishing. Finally she sits down, looking endearingly awkward, and starts updating him on the various going ons at the charity.

As the minutes tick by, Draco can't help but develop a sense of unease. There's something off about her.

Her eyes begin darting around. She speaks faster and faster. Her hand rises up and touches her throat before twitching up to her temple. Her head jerks.

It finally dawns on Draco why she doesn't remember him.

She breaks off mid-sentence, her eyes darting around wildly.

"Draco—have I—have I—been here before?"

Draco sits up instantly and reaches for her, trying to keep his voice steady. "Hermione. Hermione, look at me. Focus on me. You were telling me about the elves that came to you yesterday. Don't look around. Focus on the elves. Let's get you back to the office. I'm feeling better. Let's get out of here."

She doesn't seem to hear him.

She glances up and catches sight of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A whimpering gasp escapes her, and she falls backwards off her chair.

Draco lunges, but she stumbles to her feet and skitters away from him.

Her head starts jerking violently.

"We didn't! We didn't—"

Her voice breaks off with a sob.

Her face is turning white, and her eyes lock on his. Her voice drops into a ragged, pleading whisper that pulls up memories that Draco has tried to bury in depths of his mind. "Please… Malfoy... Malfoy…please—"

Her head jerks. "We didn't! We found it—"

She starts screaming at the top of her lungs.

It's one endless scream that vibrates and tears the air apart. Draco doesn't know what to do. Hermione keeps screaming until her whole body starts shaking violently.

Her voice abruptly cuts off, and she drops to the ground.

Draco has to leap to catch her.

He's shaking with panic and seething with rage as he carries her downstairs and through the floo to St Mungo's.

He nearly decks Potter when he and Weasley come bolting down the hallway into the Janus Thickey Ward.

Draco wants to murder them both. "You couldn't have bothered to explain that the reason she doesn't remember me is because you obliviated her entire memory of Malfoy Manor?"

They just shove him out of the way as they rush into her room and leave him waiting outside.

Potter is the first one to re-emerge, more than an hour later. He stands staring at Draco for a minute. "She'll—she should be fine," he says in a dull voice. "The mind-healers will just have to reseal the memories."

Draco glares at him. He's still shaking. He doesn't think he's stopped shaking the entire time. "Why didn't anyone just tell me why she didn't remember me? Why the fuck did you obliviate her at all? Do know what you've done to her mind?"

Potter's expression turns deadly. "Do I know what I've done to her? Why do you think it happened, Malfoy? Did it never cross your mind that there might be long term consequences for telling your insane aunt that Hermione was Muggle-born."

Potter's face starts turning white with rage. "If you want to know whose fault this is—try looking in a fucking mirror."

Draco stares at Potter in blank horror.

"Did you think people just get over torture? Since the war, St Mungo's has discovered there's an entire spectrum of brain damage that the cruciatus can cause, prior to reaching the point of insanity. Your aunt didn't torture Hermione to insanity, but just—barely. We thought she was fine. The first couple months afterward—she seemed fine. She started having neurological issues a few months after the war. When she got them checked here at St Mungo's, they found out the cruciatus had fried parts of her brain. That's—apparently that's how it works."

Potter pulls off his glasses and wipes them. He refuses to look at Draco. "The only way they could contain it was by walling off the damage with magic, by using targeted obliviation. So—that's what we did. It was just coincidental that she forgot entirely about you. I guess, for her, you were just as much a part of it as your Aunt."

Draco stares at Potter and doesn't know what emotions he's experiencing. A lot. An entire maelstrom. More emotions than he knew he had. More than he ever wanted to feel.

"Why—Why did you let her hire me?" he finally forces himself to ask.

Potter's face hardens. "That—was your mum's meddling. Your release was conditional on your ability to secure a job. To the surprise of no one, no one wanted to hire you." He scoffs and looks down, his voice becomes mocking. "She'll do anything to protect her son. She'd heard Hermione didn't remember you, so she went to her with a whole sob story about her poor son who'd been forced to take the Dark Mark before he was an adult and now he was rotting in Azkaban because no one would give him a chance."

Potter stares bitterly at him. "Hermione can never say no to a lost cause." He gives an empty laugh. "We couldn't explain to her why she shouldn't without endangering her. We thought if you and your mother were both magically gagged, and Hermione was kept away from you, that it would be doable. But of course she noticed how lonely you were and decided to take you under her wing."

Potter exhales slowly and swallows. "Stay away from her, Malfoy." His voice wobbles slightly. "The healers say you and your house are her main triggers. If you hang around her, she will inevitably relapse again. Every time they have to re-obliviate her, it's going to carve away a little more of her mind and memories. If there's even a shred of anything decent about you, stay away from her."

Draco manages to nod once before turning and walking unsteadily away.

When he's home, he floo-calls his mother and yells at her until his throat gives out.

He packs a bag and gets a cheap room in Diagon Alley. It smells and there's noise from the bar below, but it's not screaming. There are no chandeliers.

He returns to "work" after a month and is informed that his office has been moved back into the basement. He doesn't even blink at the news.

He resumes corresponding with Hermione's growing donor list.

He doesn't see her again.

Charlotte no longer bothers with passing on messages personally in order to communicate her utter loathing of him. She doesn't ever leave Hermione's side.

Draco only has to work at the charity for two more months. He puts up a calendar and X's off each day.

He's walking back from his lunch break two weeks later when he catches sight of Hermione's wild hair all the way down the hall. He ducks quickly into a nearby closet and waits until he's certain she's gone.

He nearly crashes into her as he steps back out.

Her eyes are bright and she's slightly breathless from running. Charlotte is thundering down the hall after her.

Hermione beams up at him as she sticks out her hand. "Hi! Hi, I'm so so sorry. You've been here for months and I haven't even said hello. I'm Hermione Granger, and you must be Draco Malfoy. I'm so pleased we could have you on the team here."

Draco stares down at her.

There isn't even a flicker of recognition in her eyes as she smiles up at him.

His throat tightens until it's like being strangled to death. His heart is beating itself to death inside his chest.

A second year in Azkaban would have been infinitely less painful than this.

He forces himself to sneer down at the proffered hand.

"If you don't mind, I just washed my hands. I don't want filth like you sliming them up."


	16. Favourite Things

_Prompt: "No, no, no, stay with me. Don't close your eyes."_

_Category: rom-com, fluff_

_ Rating: T_

_TW: None_

_**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**_

"Have I ever told you about your eyes?"

There was a long sigh.

"Yes. Several times now."

"They're so brown… Chocolate with honey. Pure amber in the sunlight. They light up as though they have stars in them when you're happy." Draco gave a long deep sigh. "I love them. Adore them, really. I would kill a man for your eyes."

"Yes. You mentioned that earlier when I came to get you from the bar."

"And your hair—" he caught hold of a lamp post with one hand and proceeded to swing around and around it. "I used to think it was hideous. Like a doxy nest. Sometimes"—his voice dropped into a stage whisper so loud it bounced off the buildings—"I think it's sentient."

He twirled around the lamp post again before straightening unsteadily.

"But your hair has grown on me too. Pucey made a comment about it last week, and I hexed that bastard so hard his descendants will have boils." He sneered for a moment before his expression transformed into a smug smile.

"Teach that fucking tosser to say a word about my girlfriend." He gave a deep bow from the waist and nearly face-planted into the pavement.

Hermione caught him by his scarf and straightened him, gripping him by the waist.

"Yes. I'm sure you felt very chivalrous." Her voice was dry.

He nodded heavily, wrapping his arm tightly around her shoulders and drawing himself up. "I am a gentleman."

There was a pause.

"I try—to be a gentleman." His voice wobbled.

She looked up sharply and found him staring down at her, his eyes were large and luminous, and beginning to swim. His jaw was trembling.

"God—Granger—" his voice cracked, "I'm so sorry for everything I did at school—how I treated you—I know you'll probably never be able to forgive me—"

She cut him off abruptly. "What do you think of my ears?"

He blinked, looking confused and sidetracked. "Your—ears?"

"Yes. What do you think of them?" She walked him rapidly down the street while speaking. "I wonder if maybe they're a bit too big."

"No! Your ears are perfect. Like—little pink seashells. But…" his voice was loudly conspiratorial, "my favourite thing about you," he was getting louder with every word as they turned the corner, "despite how much I love your eyes and ears, are the little noises you make when I lick your cu—"

She clamped her hand firmly over his mouth and held it there until his jaw stopped moving. She glared at him as she pulled her hand away.

"Will you keep quiet, you imbecile?" Her face was visibly scarlet even in the moonlight.

"Rude," he muttered under his breath. "Rude. Rude."

He pulled away from her sulkily, walking over to a wall and proceeding to slide down it and sit on the damp pavement, his eyes closing.

Hermione groaned and shook him, trying to pull him to his feet. "No, no, no stay with me. Don't close your eyes."

"Leave me alone, witch. I'm taken," he said. His voice was deeply slurred and he slumped down further.

Hermione started to reach into her jacket but paused and glanced over her shoulder. A matronly woman was peering disapprovingly at them through the curtains of her house. Hermione withdrew her hand with a sigh.

"Come on." She grunted and nearly fell backwards as she dragged him up off the ground.

His head lolled forward and he leaned heavily against her, nearly folding her over as she stumbled down the street past three more townhouses and then laboriously dragged him up the steps to the front door.

"Here we are." Her voice was breathless as she dug out a key and they fell through the doorway.

She lay panting for several seconds and then rolled him out of the way and kicked the door closed before drawing her wand. She flicked it and carefully levitated his limp body up the stairs and into the bedroom. Pulling back the comforter, she dropped him down onto the bed, pulled off his shoes, slipped his tie off, and tucked him carefully in.

She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and change into pyjamas before crawling in beside him, curling up against his shoulder. His arm immediately shifted and wrapped around her.

She lifted her head, resting her hand on his chest as she kissed him chastely on the lips.

Draco's eyes instantly popped open and he withdrew his arm with a jerk, nearly toppling off the bed.

Hermione sat up and watched as he quickly sat up, snatching up his pillow and holding it against his chest as he stood. He glanced around the bedroom and hurried over to the rug on the far side. He looked up and down the floor and finally dropped the pillow in one corner and proceeded to lie down there, bunching the pillow under his head and closing his eyes.

Hermione stared at him for several seconds before finally speaking. "Draco… what are you doing? Come back to bed. Aren't you going to sleep with me?"

His eyes opened and he looked at her blearily from across the room. He shook his head so firmly his shoulders swung with each movement. "No. I'm sure you're a very nice person, but I have a girlfriend. I'm not fucking it up. Not for anyone."

He closed his eyes again and went to sleep.


End file.
